Not From Around Here - 2

“He’s neither-nor,” said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, [about Barack Obama] while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. “He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”

Separate New York Times articles today look at attitudes about race on campus and in the South, and recall for me some observations by David Brooks, posted on the Freeway earlier in the campaign.

I think that in order to affirm how far we may have come in our attitudes about race in America, we have to be totally honest about the distance yet to go.

The Duchess

There's a lot we liked about "The Duchess" and some things -- well, not so much.

It's a gorgeous film to watch on the big screen, with a compelling story about a fascinating woman very engaged in the extraordinary times just before the American and French Revolutions. It's full of fine actors, beautifully costumed, who are so good that they couldn't screw it up if they tried. And they have a great story to work with.

The soundtrack by Rachel Portman is so haunting and right that as soon as I got home, I downloaded it to my iPod.

Unfortunately, the correspondences between Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire, and Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, while accurate, are laid on so thick and so often that they distract from the narrative flow.

Still, it's well worth seeing at the cinemaplex; but do it soon, beacause there weren't many people there when we went, and the average age looked to be well-north of fifty.

For now, have a look at this marvelous extended wide-screen preview from the film's UK website.

Teens Adjust To New Economic Realities


“Kaitlyn Postle is having a bumpy adjustment (to the financial crisis). She has a weekend baby-sitting job and can’t wait to turn 16, so she can find work at a mall.

“I used to ask for things and my parents would say, ‘We can’t do that,’ ” she said in a phone interview. “So I would throw a tantrum and get an attitude. They used to give in a lot. But that doesn’t work now.”

The good news, she said, is that when she shops at thrift stores, she can buy more for her money. But now that she has a temporary license — freedom! — how will she pay for gas?

She assumes she will have to attend a local college and live at home. “I don’t have a problem with that,” she said. “Whatever. That way, I won’t have to pay for everything.”

In the background, a half-shout of protest could be heard. “Of course,” Kaitlyn added, “my parents aren’t too happy about that.”

Examining the financial crisis as it ripples out into the real world.

As if it wasn’t already a challenge to teach kids how to manage (and earn) their own money…

Alternative Investments


If you're on the sidelines financially, uncertain which way to turn, there's a new way to keep yourself warmed-up while you wait to get back into the game.

"Today OneSeason.com is introducing a day-trading site for sports fans – a Web stock market which allows people to invest real money to own “shares” of their favorite sports players, teams and leagues. The word “shares” is in quotes because the shares on OneSeason are, ultimately, meaningless— only illusory slices of players like Eli Manning or Lebron James, which either rise or fall depending on the demand for those shares among other traders. People can transfer up to $2500 a year to their OneSeason accounts."

Fantasy Sports on steroids.

More Paglia on Palin

"The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient persona of the mother — without losing career ambition or power of assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive.

The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin’s bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition — without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She’s no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she’s pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite — which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey’s witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin’s cadences and charm, she can’t capture the energy, which is a force of nature."

Some more reflections on Sarah Palin from Camille Paglia

Bailing Out The Kids


(Illustration by Mark Matcho for Newsweek)

"A Pennsylvania mother says that after her 23-year-old daughter took on $20,000 in loans to help finance a $160,000 undergraduate degree, the best job she could get last year paid less than $40,000, failing to cover rent, expenses and loan payments. In hopes of helping her gain entry to a higher-paying career, her parents picked up her loan payments, paid off $2,000 in credit-card debt and persuaded her to move back home, where she's preparing to apply for law school."

A lemming-like push to get your kid into college, without regard for the return on your (and their) investment, is resulting in helicopter parents being grounded by boomerang kids.

What They Do For Love


A Chorus Line is my favorite Broadway musical, in the same way The Godfather is my favorite movie. Both are fresh every time I see them. So I was eager to see for myself if the 2006 Broadway revival of A Chorus Line was as good as I had heard it was.

The CD of the revival captures the energy and passion of the original, and surprisingly includes more of the actual play than the original recording did.

Most of the actors in this revival of A Chorus Line, which we saw last weekend at The Opera House in Boston, weren’t even born when the show opened off-Broadway at The Public Theatre in New York in May 1975.

The characters in the show have become so iconic – as in “a Cassie” or "a Morales" – that aspiring Broadway musical actors want to play them with all the fervor and passion the characters themselves demonstrate in “I Hope I Get It,” the play’s opening number. That's because the play is about them and will continue to be about every Broadway musical actor, past and present.

At our performance, an understudy (Julie Kotarides) played Diana Morales and nearly stole the show, in classic Broadway fashion.

Nikki Snelson took complete ownership of the role of Cassie and performed a thrilling "The Music and the Mirror," almost making you believe no one else had ever done it before.

All of this and more is what makes A Chorus Line unique, and has kept it fresh and relevant for so long, with no end in sight.

Seeing it at the Opera House was special; even though its seats are as small as Fenway Park's, it has been fully restored to its Roaring Twenties’ splendor, with exceptional sightlines and architectural details. Don’t miss any chance you get to see something there.

And don't miss the chance to see this production of A Chorus Line if it comes to a city anywhere near you!

Axe Dark Temptation

I don't think you're going to see this commercial anytime soon on "Oprah" or "Desperate Housewives," but you can't avoid it on just about every baseball and football broadcast -- right after the one for Captain Morgan Rum.

It will sell a lot of Axe body spray.

I'm including it here as an example of the kind of repetitive media messages men are bombarded with when most women aren't watching -- and also beacuse it's sick, twisted and kind of funny:

They're Baaack!

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight…you and I are about to hire many of the same people who made huge amounts of money (think “Trophy Houses”) getting us into this financial mess, and pay them large hourly fees to help get us out of it:

“Treasury officials do not plan to manage the mortgage assets on their own. Instead, they will outsource nearly all of the work to professionals, who will oversee huge portfolios of bonds and other securities for a management fee.

The government will hire only a bare-bones internal staff of about two dozen people with expertise in asset management, accounting and legal issues, according to administration officials, and will outsource the bulk of the program to 5 to 10 asset management firms.

The selected asset management firms will receive a chunk of the $250 billion that Congress is allowing the Treasury to spend in the first phase of the bailout. Those firms will receive fees that are likely to be lower than the industry standard of 1 percent of assets, or $1 for every $100 under management.

Administration officials said they would try to drive down fees with a competitive bidding process. But with $700 billion to disburse, the plan could still generate tens of billions of dollars in fees if the firms negotiate anywhere close to their standard fees.”

I guess we have to hire them, since they’re the only ones who know how to untangle the mortgage-backed securities they created in the first place.

The Kingston Trio

“Thirteen of the group’s albums reached the Top 10, and in 1959 alone four of its albums placed in the Top 10, a record matched only by the Beatles.”

Reading Nick Reynolds’ obituary today, I was surprised to learn that The Kingston Trio began in the late 1950s. Somehow I thought they begain in the Sixties - but then, the Fifties bled all the way through to 1964.

Anyway, I remember hearing them on someone’s portable radio at a beach party in Seaside Park NJ in 1960, and their sound was so refreshing, especially in the context of most of the pap that passed for "popular music” at the time.

At another beach party later that summer, someone broke out a guitar and suddenly we were all singing along to “Tom Dooley.”

Over the following couple of summers, our hair grew longer and the music changed to Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles.

And then things really took off.

The Kingston Trio had that buttoned-down ivy league look, like the early Beach Boys, and their songs were definitely not political. But they expanded the boundaries of popular music and made it OK to play guitar, sing along, and maybe even write a song or two.

They will never make it in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but The Kingston Trio was there at the creation.

What Would Homer Do?


If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you have $49 today.

If you purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you have $33 today.

If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you have $0 today.

If you purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, and recycled the aluminum cans for cash, you have $214 today

Based on this scenario, your best investment in these difficult times would appear to be the 401-Keg, which involves drinking heavily and recycling

In related news, recent studies have found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year, and drinks, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year

As a result, the average American gets about 41 miles to the gallon

Thanks to all who participated for doing your part in keeping America great!

Don't Misunderestimate Sarah Palin


"Repeating a stump speech is harder in a nationally televised debate, though, when moderators such as Thursday night's Gewn Ifill of PBS are likely to bore in and demand fuller explanations. Any apparent unfamiliarity with a topic also will prove problematic, and a glaring factual mistake will be difficult to overcome.

But Gov. Palin's telegenic gifts could help neutralize some shortcomings. Ms. Casey, the public-radio reporter, credits Gov. Palin's training as a TV sportscaster for her ability to connect with a broadcast audience at home.

In her debates during the 2006 campaign, Ms. Palin would often thank the reporters serving as debate moderators -- invariably addressing them by their first names, and adding a compliment for their insightful questions. She would then turn immediately to the camera to speak directly to a home audience.

"Like a sportscaster, she's learned to be good at dropping the g's, and relating to the viewer as a fan," Ms. Casey explains. "You know: 'It's a big game this weekend and it's gonna be tough. But we're all in this together.'"

I hope that Joe Biden doesn't fail to study her history in debates; we all know what happens when you fail to study history...

Across The Universe

I had resisted seeing "Across The Universe" because The Beatles were such a large part of my life in the Sixties, and I didn't want to hear anyone else perform their music. I couldn't imagine how it could be more than "tribute band" quality.

Last week my friend Donna reported that she had seen the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. She thought I would, too. So that night I located it OnDemand and began watching, but when people who had been acting suddenly broke out into song, I had an "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" flashback, and went back to watching the Red Sox.

But this past weekend, on a rainy afternoon, I tried again, and Donna was right -- this is a lovely, magical movie with a refreshing lack of irony and a clear eye for what it really was like to live through those times. And it respects the Beatles' music.

Here's the point at which I knew I was hooked, with no choice but to watch until the movie ended: